


Always

by mallardeer



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 09:45:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10806627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mallardeer/pseuds/mallardeer
Summary: “Forgive me, Supergirl,” she says softly, and Kara clenches her hands into fists.“Kara,” she corrects, before she can think better of it.“What about Kara?” Lena asks impatiently, and Kara’s heart falls.An alternate ending to 2.18 "Ace Reporter"





	Always

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: I had a lot of angst about this episode. And I hate how TV works. Kara never should have left Lena’s side after Jack died.

Freed from the nanobots, Supergirl drops to the ground and forces herself to check her impulse to run to Lena’s side. Lena is kneeling beside Jack, holding his hand, and all she can do is stand and watch, powerless. Everything in her yearns to take Lena in her arms, to offer all the comfort and assurance she can. It’s what Kara would do—but she knows it’s not what Supergirl would do.  
  
And not for the first time, she hates the duality of her life. She hates that she can’t be Lena’s friend right now. And she hates that this man, who was so important to her friend, is another person she has failed to save. She realizes she wants not only to comfort Lena but to have Lena accept her comfort, to forgive her for failing to save Jack. And that is simply something she cannot ask for.  
  
Lena stays beside Jack, nearly frozen, for a long time. Kara leaves her to herself and goes about getting Beth handed over to the proper authorities. When they come for Jack’s body, Lena steps away, shaking herself as if emerging from a spell. Kara approaches her carefully. “Lena,” she says quietly, “can I take you home?”

“Do they need anything from me?” she asks, gesturing to the agents working through the lab.

“I’ll take care of it,” Kara says, wanting to shield Lena from all the legal mess, at the very least.

“Then, yes, I think I’d like to go home,” Lena says, eyes bright with unshed tears, and Kara’s heart aches and aches.

But she gets to take Lena into her arms now, and Lena closes her eyes and rests her forehead against her neck as Kara flies her home. She sets Lena on her feet outside her apartment building, and without saying anything, takes her hand and lets Lena lead her up to her apartment.  
  
“Thank you for seeing me home, Supergirl,” Lena says stiffly, dropping her hand when they reach her door.

“Thank you for saving my life,” Kara replies clumsily, but she wants Lena to know how seriously she’s taking all of this.

Lena sighs, unlocks the door, and after a moment, tugs Kara inside with her. “What else could I do? He was already gone,” she says, shaking her head.

“It shouldn’t have had to be you,” Kara says.

“You would have preferred to have been the one to kill him?” Lena asks flatly, and Kara balks, not having considered that.   
  
“Lena…”

“Forgive me, Supergirl,” she says softly, and Kara clenches her hands into fists.

“Kara,” she corrects, before she can think better of it.

“What about Kara?” Lena asks impatiently, and Kara’s heart falls.

“Lena,” she says plaintively. “It’s me.”

Lena’s eyes go wide, and Kara tries to smile at her reassuringly, but she has realized too late this was probably the wrong moment to reveal herself. “Kara…” Lena whispers, and then her face becomes blank, like a mask. “Well, tonight certainly is a night for revelations,” she says brusquely, but she does not move away or ask Kara to leave.

Kara takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry I haven’t told you. I almost kind of thought you knew, sometimes, and were teasing me. But this is the second time you’ve saved my life, and you had to—I put you through something awful, so you deserve to know the truth.”  
“You just took away the one person I had left, Kara,” Lena says flatly.

“I’m so sorry—I know he was—”

“Not him. You. My friend Kara Danvers. I could be mad at Supergirl and still—still count on Kara. But now I… Now I have no one. Again.”

“Hey, no. That’s not true,” Kara insists, heart in her throat, but Lena turns from her. “You can still be mad at Supergirl—mad at me. But you can also still count on me. I’m not going anywhere, Lena.”  
  
“Am I going to have to sacrifice everyone because of you and your cousin?” Lena continues, as if she hasn’t even heard Kara. “My brother? My mother? Jack? You?”  
  
“I am still here,” Kara says again. “Lena, you are so strong and so brave and so good. You can give me all your pain and anger, okay? I am a bottomless pit of pain and anger,” she says ruefully, and Lena turns abruptly to face her.

“You? Sunshine and rainbows Danvers?” Lena says derisively.

“No, me, Kara Zor-El, one of only two people left from a dead planet,” she replies, sighing. “Lena, I didn’t mean to say that—this isn’t about me. But a lot of people I counted on—a lot of people I loved…are gone.”  
  
Lena blinks and looks at her as though she’s never seen her before. “You’ve lost everything too,” she realizes, and Kara nods. “The sunshine and rainbows—what is that, an act?”

“A choice,” Kara says gently. “To turn away from the darkness and pain. To believe in the potential everyone has to be…good.”

“How?” Lena demands.

“I’m not saying it’s easy. But giving in to my worst instincts, well. I did that once, and it was the worst experience of my life here.” She shudders, hating to remember how she’d behaved under the influence of the red kryptonite.  
  
“I killed him. I did that,” Lena says, turning her back to Kara again. “And all I feel is…empty. I’m not angry or sad or scared. There’s nothing.”

“You’re in shock,” Kara tries to explain, but Lena shakes her head.

“No. No, loss…does strange things to my family. Lillian was there, you know, when they came for Lex. She stood by and watched them drag her perfect son away, screaming, and when I got there? She was tidying up the mess, like it was nothing.”

“That’s how a lot of people deal with loss. They do the things that make sense, at the moment. It’s too big to take on all at once.”

“Well, now she’s dealing with it by trying to destroy every alien on earth. If that’s what loss drives Lillian to…what the hell am I going to become?” she asks, and Kara can see she is scared—terrified—and everything in her yearns to take Lena in her arms and tell her she’ll be all right.

But Lena holds herself apart, and Kara can only stand beside her. “You are not Lillian—or Lex. You are just yourself. Just Lena. And you? Are my hero,” Kara tells her earnestly.  
  
“Kara,” Lena says, and the tears start to fall, and Kara gently pulls Lena into her arms. “I want to hate you,” she confesses, but lets her head rest against Kara’s neck.  
  
“Go ahead,” Kara tells her, but her heart is breaking. She’s failed to save three people involved in this mess and put her friend an impossible position, but she has to be sure Lena knows she won’t fail her again.  
  
“Why? Why are you doing this for me?” Lena asks, voice cracking.

“What are friends for?” Kara says quietly, holding her tighter, and Lena manages a laugh, but buries her face in Kara’s shoulder.  
  
Kara carefully guides them both to the couch, where Lena ends up crashing. After everything she’s been through, Kara isn’t surprised. There’s probably a bunch of things to go through at the DEO, but she’s not leaving. She cradles Lena in her arms and carries her to her bed and then turns around to head back to the couch, but Lena grabs her wrist.

“Don’t go,” she says in a very small voice, so Kara lies beside her, and Lena falls asleep still holding her hand.

Sleep doesn’t come for Kara. She spends the night agonizing over her failure to save anyone this time. It’s not fair that she’s suffered so much loss, not fair that Lena has, not fair that she apparently can’t do anything to prevent Lena from suffering more.  
  
\--  
  
It’s strange to wake up and have the first thing she sees be Supergirl’s cape. Kara is sitting on the edge of her bed, head bent, with her cape wrapped tightly around her.  
She can’t believe she ever could have missed the fact that Supergirl was kind, fierce, compassionate Kara Danvers all along, and she feels an ache in her heart.

“Kara?” she asks, sitting up.

“You asked me not to go,” Kara says, and she remembers.

“Thank you,” she says quietly and moves to sit beside Kara on the edge of the bed.   
  
After a minute, Kara’s arm slides across her back, and she leans into her. “I’m still mad at you,” Lena says, but she’s not sure if she is, really. Being mad at Supergirl—at Kara—can’t bring back any of the people she’s lost.  
  
“That’s okay,” Kara says, but her voice is heavy, and Lena knows she’s asking too much of her friend. But she can’t stop herself. “I’m mad at myself too. If I hadn’t jumped to conclusions, that Jack was the bad guy… This could have ended differently.”  
“Keep digging, right?” Lena sighs, letting her head fall to Kara’s shoulder. “That’s what you did for me.”

“I should have done it for him—for you, this time too. But I had to watch two people die, and I was so scared you would be next. God, Lena, I was terrified of losing you,” Kara says, so Lena takes her hand and squeezes it.  
  
How can she be angry when Kara has only ever been worried about her safety?

“I shouldn’t have gone to confront him myself,” she admits. “You asked me not to, but…”  
“I know. I would have done the same thing,” Kara says. “I’d do anything to try to save the people I love.”

“And even people you barely know,” Lena points out, unable to count herself among the people Kara loves, and Kara’s head droops.

“Do I really barely know you?” she worries, and Lena sighs.

“You probably know me better than anyone these days,” she realizes. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“It’s all right,” Kara insists. “I just…can you—can you forgive me?” she asks, sounding so uncertain, and Lena’s heart just breaks.

“Kara, there’s nothing to forgive,” she says. “I wanted to be mad at Supergirl so I wouldn’t have to be mad at Jack or myself, but… What good does that do? He’s still gone. And you’re still here. And you saved me—and probably everybody else in this city. Again.” She lifts her head up and smiles tentatively at Kara.  
  
The smile Kara gives her in reply feels like the sun, warming the frozen parts of her, and the tears come fast.  
  
“I will always save you,” Kara promises, and it’s too much, much too much—after Jack, after Supergirl, after everything.  
  
She turns away, to try to hide the tears, to try to get a hold of herself. Growing up a Luthor, she had to learn to swallow her pain and sadness—but she has always had her moments of failure.

“Lena,” Kara says softly, pulling her back, wrapping her cape around her. “It’s okay to cry, all right? I’m not going anywhere.”

And really, when has anyone been able to promise her that? Her whole life has been a list of people leaving her. The tears flood out of her as she clutches Kara’s shoulders, and Kara holds her and tenderly strokes her hair, which starts to make her cry harder. But then the tears slow, and she breathes deeply. When she pulls away, she can’t help but feel embarrassed, but Kara hands her a box of tissues with a gentle smile, and she laughs and turns to blow her nose and try to clean herself up.

As she’s mopping her face, Kara’s phone rings, and she stands up to answer it. “Alex, hey, sorry,” she says right away, and then sighs heavily. “I know. Listen, I had to take care of something. Yeah, I know. But you handled it, yes? No, I don’t think that’s necessary.” Another sigh. “Because. Listen, you should have everything you need in the lab, okay? No. I’ll be there later.” And she hangs up and crosses her arms over her chest.

“Kara, you can go. I’ll be fine,” she says reluctantly. But she doesn’t want to face…anything that’s happened. And she really doesn’t want to be alone. Still, it’s far too selfish to expect Kara to drop everything just for her.

“I can stay here as long as you need me,” Kara says, but Lena shakes her head.

“Go. Do whatever it is your sister needs you to do.”  
  
Kara sighs but nods once. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she promises, dropping a kiss on Lena’s head, which makes them both blush. But then she is gone.  
  
And because the last thing she wants right now is to sit home alone, she showers and dresses and heads to LCorp. For a couple of hours, she does manage to get some work done, but at noon or so, she sinks onto her sofa, unable to focus.  
  
That’s when Kara makes her entrance, carrying a bouquet that she sets carefully on the table. “Those are lovely,” she says, and Kara smiles at her sadly.

“Beth’s in jail,” she reports.

“Good,” Lena says, surprising herself with how vicious she sounds.

Kara merely nods and sits beside her. “Are you sure you want to be here?” she asks gently.

“Better here than at home by myself.”  
  
“I can take you home, if you like.”

Lena just shrugs, and then tears start to fall. Kara slides closer to her and puts her arm around her shoulders. “Just…stay with me?” she asks quietly, closing her eyes.

“Always,” Kara promises, and Lena lets herself sink into Kara’s embrace.

She has never believed in “always.” But this time, she thinks that maybe she can.


End file.
